


Fireworks

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M, Real Gay Pining Hours, a little bit of internalised period-typical homophobia on jamie's part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-15 08:49:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20863508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: The Doctor takes Jamie to a fireworks festival, and Jamie wonders exactly what his motivations are.





	Fireworks

**Author's Note:**

> on [tumblr](https://the--highlanders.tumblr.com/post/188123209356/fireworks).

The night sky was bursting with colour, swirling with splashes of red and green and purple. They each hung suspended for a few moments, then fell to earth like so many raindrops, only to be renewed again. Jamie stared up at them, entranced, watching them rise and fall and rise again. It was as if the auroras he had sometimes seen over his home had been boiled down to their brightest essences and returned to the sky. He almost turned to say as much to the Doctor, but words did not seem enough to capture the beauty of it, and he closed his mouth almost as soon as he had opened it.

Besides, he told himself, it would not do to look away and miss out on whatever was going on above them. He knew that if he looked over at the Doctor, he would not be able to tear his eyes away. Risking a glance out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the Doctor’s face was full of rapture, almost as bright as the fireworks themselves. The colours were casting themselves over his face and reflecting in his eyes, and Jamie hurriedly dragged his attention away, not wanting to be caught staring. Instead, he shuffled away from the Doctor, wrapping his arms around himself.

“Are you cold?”

He looked over at the Doctor in surprise, and immediately cursed himself for it. Concern was written all over his face, and he was already tugging one arm out of his coat sleeve. Jamie hurriedly pushed it back over his shoulder, trying to smile in a way that was more reassuring than pained. His hand lingered for a little too long against the Doctor’s arm, and he drew it away sharply, his cheeks burning.

“I’m alright,” he said, a little too brusquely to sound entirely casual. “I’m no’ really feelin’ it. What about ye? It’s no’ like ye do well in the cold.”

“Oh, I’m alright,” the Doctor echoed cheerfully, seemingly clueless in the face of Jamie’s embarrassment. He glanced up towards the fireworks, pausing for a moment to watch a particularly bright explosion. “Quiet enough for you?”

Jamie nodded, leaning back against the bench. He tipped his head against the top of it to take in the smaller fireworks careening off the edges of the display. “Aye. I’m glad I didnae stay in the TARDIS.”

“Mm. I knew you were disappointed about missing those fireworks last week.” The Doctor stretched his arms out, draping them carelessly over the back of the bench. His fingers brushed against Jamie’s shoulder, and the ghost of the touch burned through his shirt for a long moment afterwards. “Quite a stroke of luck, you know. Finding a planet where the atmosphere allows for silent explosions.”

“Aye.” Jamie grinned at the Doctor, bumping their shoulders together. “Thanks.”

“Oh, don’t thank me, thank the TARDIS. She’s the one who got us here.”

Jamie’s grin turned to a knowing smirk. “Oh, did she?”

A hint of red crept onto the Doctor’s cheeks as he realised what he had said. “I mean – it was her turn to decide where to go.”

“_Oh_, aye. I’m sure it was.”

An enormous spray of light stretched across the sky, silencing the Doctor before he could try and argue. All across the plaza, people fell silent, turning to look up at the sky. The firework hung suspended amongst the stars for a long moment before plummeting back to earth. As it fell, the shape disintegrated into tiny sparks, and Jamie watched them fade away, leaving only the smell of smoke and a streak of grey across the already-clouded sky.

The plaza’s lights dimmed, and Jamie clutched at the Doctor’s arm, though he relaxed a little when he saw that the crowds around them had not reacted. A soft murmur of conversation was beginning to grow again, and people were pointing up towards the sky, although the fireworks had stopped. But when he looked again, Jamie saw that the clouds left behind by the fireworks were fusing into a great blanket that dimmed the stars. A lone snowflake tumbled down from them, watched keenly by every occupant of the plaza. Those who stood closest to it backed away, clearing its path towards the ground. It tumbled and twisted through the air painfully slowly, and eventually dipped out of sight behind the rows of people that surrounded it, Jamie pushed himself halfway off the bench, craning his neck to try and catch sight of it again – but before he could, a cheer rose up from the crowd, and he knew it had landed.

More snowflakes were following it now, pouring out of the clouds to settle over trees and food-stalls and people. Jamie relaxed back into his seat, beaming. The lights had flickered on again, a band had struck up a lively tune, and people were beginning to dance, spinning around in joyful circles as if they were falling snowflakes themselves. “What just happened?”

“Atmospheric disturbance.” The Doctor was smiling just as broadly as Jamie was. “On your Earth, fireworks tend to be followed by rain. Here, it snows – but the planet orbits its sun so slowly that the conditions are only right once every hundred of your Earth years. The native people of this planet worshipped the snowfall, after they figured out how to make it happen, and most of the people who’ve settled here took on the tradition.” He gestured out around them. “Even if you don’t believe in it, it’s an excuse for a party.”

“Aye, it is that.” Once again, Jamie made the mistake of glancing over at the Doctor. His eyes were gleaming with excitement, and he was twisting his hands eagerly, made restless by the beauty of what they had just witnessed.

The Doctor glanced over him, and Jamie blushed, filled with shame at having been caught staring. “I don’t suppose you’d like to dance with me, Jamie?”

The question pulled Jamie’s mind to a skidding halt, and very nearly stopped his heart, too. He had dared to wonder just how friendly this night out was, with Ben and Polly still asleep in the TARDIS, and the festival, and the fireworks – but he had wondered the same thing before, and nothing had ever come of it. The last thing he had expected tonight was an invitation to dance. _He doesn’t know what he’s saying_, he told himself sternly. _He’s an alien, he probably doesn’t think anything of it_. But there was still a hope growing in his chest, wrapping its vines around his heart. A hope that perhaps he was not imagining the intent behind the Doctor’s actions, that his feelings might be returned. He had cut away similar thoughts before, but this one was squeezing him particularly tightly, catching his breath in his throat. It would be the easiest thing in the world to take the Doctor’s outstretched hand and say yes, to pretend for a few minutes that the Doctor could love him too.

But there was always the chance that he was wrong, that the Doctor simply thought he was being friendly. _And besides_, he thought, _is that really the place to test that? In front of hundreds of other people?_ Polly had explained to him that there was nothing wrong with loving the Doctor, that people in the future had no objection to two men being together, and when he examined the crowd before him, he could see the truth in her words. But an anxious self-consciousness still held him back, warning him against taking the Doctor’s hand where anyone could see them. For all Polly’s reassurances, a part of him could not help but feel that the ache of silence was a fair price to pay for having been foolish enough to fall in love with the Doctor. He raised his own hand a little way, but a hot wire of shame burned down his spine, and he lowered it again, clutching at the bench until his knuckles were white to hide his slight trembling.

The Doctor was watching him with a touch of concern, still waiting for his answer. “I’m no’ really one for dancing,” he lied. “Better not.”

A brief expression that could almost have been disappointment flashed over the Doctor’s face, but it was gone so quickly that Jamie was sure he must have imagined it. “If you’re sure.”

A tense silence fell over them, and Jamie shifted uncomfortably around on the bench, his mind silently tearing itself to pieces. He had believed that he had accepted the fact that he loved the Doctor, and the likelihood that the Doctor would never love him back. But one short question had taken that acceptance and spun it on its head, and now he felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, about to jump, with no idea of what might be below him. The rational part of his mind told him that his dilemma was hardly so dramatic. Simply accepting the Doctor’s offer would not give away his feelings, as long as he was sensible. And yet he still had a sense that he was stepping out over an empty void, ready to fall, with only the hope that the landing would be an easy one.

“Actually...” He half-choked on the dryness of his mouth, and he paused, struggling to collect himself. There was still a way out, he thought – he could divert the conversation, say something completely different – but then the Doctor turned to look at him expectantly, and there was a look in his eyes that made Jamie’s heart clench. Somehow, beyond certainty, he knew exactly why the Doctor had asked him to dance, though he hardly dared believe it. “I might take ye up on that dance after all.” The words tumbled out of him, and he was sure they must have been incomprehensible. “If ye still want to.”

Another look passed over the Doctor’s face, too quick for Jamie to properly take in, but this time it was something more like joy. “Of course.” He stood up, holding out both hands this time, and Jamie took them, letting himself be pulled up.

They stood frozen in place for a moment, equally startled by their sudden proximity. The Doctor was gripping his hands a little too tightly, and staring at him a little too intensely. Almost instinctively, Jamie raised the Doctor’s hands to his face, pressing his knuckles against his mouth softly. A wave of embarrassment washed over him when he realised what he had done, and he tried to pull his hands away, to turn and run and bury his feelings deep enough that he could forget them. But the Doctor held his hands too firmly for him to pull away, and another part of him was dying to let his feelings finally spill out, to tell the whole truth of it. Even as he opened his mouth, he was unsure which thought would quash the other, and what words would emerge.

Before he could speak, the Doctor untangled one unsteady hand to press his fingers against Jamie’s lips, quietening him, pressing the words back in before they could spring out half-formed and clumsy. Jamie almost expected him to say something himself, but when he looked up, he saw the same skittishness in the Doctor’s eyes, and the same disbelieving hope, too. And yet he knew that if either of them tried to find the words to explain themselves, the moment would be broken, just as he had almost shattered the spell of the fireworks.

Instead, he squeezed the Doctor’s hands and led him over to the dancing, still glancing around them nervously. But nobody seemed to be giving them a second glance, and for the first time he truly believed what Polly had told him, that he could let himself love the Doctor. His heart still pounded with the fear of the great emptiness below him, but now he knew what the landing would be like – and that the Doctor stood on the other side, balancing on the edge in a mirror image of himself.

He braced himself, and let himself fall.


End file.
